Do you all remember when I was in the hospital for the entire month of December? Well, today, I would like to ‘clue’ you in on some of the things that happened to me while I was hospitalized.
As most of you know, I suffer from a rare genetic disease called Porphyria. This disease is hard to treat and there is no cure. The disease flares up for me about twice a year, which usually lands me in the hospital. During these “flare ups” I suffer with uncontrollable abdominal pain, back pain, leg pain, nausea and vomiting! It’s 100% miserable when it flares up!
Anyway, while I was in the hospital I rang for the nurse to get some pain medication. After about 10 minutes, she comes in and injects pain medication into my IV. I then asked her to take me to the bathroom which she did. Now here is the problem:
She put me onto the toilet after being heavily medicated and left the room. Within one minute of her leaving me alone in the bathroom, I was on the floor and unconscious! Three hours later when I finally woke up, I was back in my hospital bed but very confused on what had happened.
Once I was stable…they hauled me off for a CT scan, an MRI scan and several X-rays to see if they could “find” out what happened. Well, I am pretty sure I know what happened because this type of medical negligence has happened to me before. Here is what I think:
About five years earlier I was over-dosed with narcotics by a hospital nurse who gave me twice the amount I was supposed to have. I remember falling onto the floor and being unconscious for several hours. In this case, that nurse admitted her mistake and they realized that she had given me 30 mgs. of the medication, instead of 15 mgs.
This time around…I am almost 100% sure that the same thing happened but with a different nurse. I was supposed to get 8 mgs. of the pain medication but all 15 mgs. of it was missing from the multi-dose vial.
With that said…the hospital and nurse is denying that this has happened and that it was just a “fluke” that I had a seizure and hit the floor. Right….like I buy that!
The moral of this story is this…If at any time you suspect medical negligence you need to retain an attorney immediately! Look for a professional with a good reputation like Irwin Mitchell or someone who specializes in these type of cases. Do not sign any papers that the hospital may hand you without FIRST consulting an attorney!
Well there you have it…my piece of medical and legal advice for today! Luckily for me, I have no permanent effects from their negligent mistake!
OMG ! Thank god you’re okay Shelly. There is so much negligence in hospitals now a days. The nurse can’t explain the missing medicine, are these people crazy. It’s quite obvious she gave it all to you. I hope you sue the heck out of them.Years ago when I was in the hospital for my back my Dr. was telling me how he was upset with the nurses because he had a lot of elderly patients who told him they were in terrible pain and asking him why they couldn’t have medicine. Well he was so ticked off he went to the nurses station and verbally lost it. He said they thought the fact that the patients were elderly they could just say they didn’t remember getting it and maybe they had Dementia.He said not All his patients could be wrong. In the end it was found out two of the nurses were taking the medicine. He told me to ask the Dr whenever I was hospitalized what medicines I’d be getting so I could ask when they came in. Only problem with that is what if you’re asleep.
Carol L
I am so gald that you are okay after that horrible experience at the hospital. You were right to refuse to pay for the extra tests. When my husband has been hospitalized someone has always been with him – often because there were not wnough nurses on the floor.
Holy cow. What a nightmare. So sorry to hear about such experiences! I haven’t had the best experiences in the hospital, but compared to these stories, I had it pretty good.
When my ex-hubby was hospitalized for 33 days, we always had family there with him. He was practically comatose, and I knew that unless some one was there with him, he could have been in trouble. One time, at the very beginning, I came in and he was practically blue. I immediately called for the nurse, and we had the whole crash team in there. His respiratory rate was about 3, as in, 3 breaths per minute. His pulse ox was about 80. They had to give him narcan because he had too much dilaudid. Who knows how long he would have stayed there starving of oxygen if I had not come in when I did.
I am glad you aren’t hurt but who has to pay for that MRI, CT, & xrays you wouldn’t otherwise have needed? If they left me alone to fall in the floor you can bet I would refuse to pay those.
Hi Deana
Thanks for your comments! I did refuse to pay for those tests & my insurance co refused too. Apparently the hospital’s insurance company is covering those costs.
I completely believe you. I have a rare disease myself, but I don’t really find myself having to go to the hospital because my symptoms are not severe in that capacity. Anyway, I do know that a few years back when I had to go through extensive surgery, I was appalled that throughout the duration that I was kept in the hospital room (after the week I spent in the ICU), I had probably a dozen different nurses come and check my vitals and give me my daily antibiotic and other shots. They came in at a routine schedule, did their thing and left. Lucky for me, I had family around most of the time so that I wasn’t left to fend for myself, but there were occasions when it was night time and I was left in the bathroom by myself and lo and behold, the nurse assisted me for about two seconds and then left. I didn’t faint, but I don’t know what they would have done if I had. I generally think that there has to be some kind of systematic way in all medical care where nurses are given a checklist and told to just go by that checklist. They CANNOT make a mistake. Little things like giving the wrong dose could potentially cause serious problems. You’re lucky that you regained consciousness. It’s unbelievably foolish, in my opinion, for medical staff to be this out of touch. I feel like they have to follow certain procedures and codes to address any kind of issue that pops up, but it seems like (since I’ve dealt with a fair amount of medical professionals) nobody actually wants to think outside the box. It is just baffling. And of course they will run every test on you because they have to cover every angle,…though not the one that is the most obvious and the one that the patient may actually think happened. I could go on about my experiences, but I think I’ve made my point. It is just frustrating that negligent mistakes like this happen so often.
Hi Ari
Thank you for your comments! I totally agree with everything you stated! This “incident” happened around 7pm in the evening and they are estimating that I laid on the bathroom floor for a good 15 minutes until a different nurse found me.
Once this happened, they kept a nurse in my room 24 hours a day for 4 days straight. The only time a nurse left my room was when family was visiting. Once family left, nurse was back in. Half the time they watched TV, read a book or whatever. I was NOT amused with it. After that 4 days was over, they put me on a bed alarm…every time I got out of bed, it alarmed at the nurses station. They made me feel like “I” did something wrong and it wasn’t me…it was them!
#1. You can highly medicate someone on narcotics, plop them on a toilet 2 minutes later and walk out.
#2. You need to make sure you are giving the patient the exact medicine and at the correct dosage. I know I got the right medicine but she can’t account for the missing 7 mgs. from that multi-dose bottle which tells me, I got all 15 mgs and not just 8mgs. Geesh!
Glad it’s over! When I go back in for my total hip replacement, I have already made arrangements to NOT have that nurse again.